A recent report from the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) has warned that pressure on local authorities to keep waste out of landfill is at risk of backfiring. Ever increasing target rates for recycling is resulting in an emphasis of quantity not quality, producing a poor quality stream of recyclable material. Accordingly much of this is low-grade recycled material which holds no real economic value so ironically becomes destined for landfill anyway.

The report suggests that the waste industry needs to amend its culture to focus not only on increasing the amount of material recycled, but also on the quality and value of the material being recycled. This would then allow recycled materials to be fed back into the economy as saleable goods.

The report calls for the progression to a “circular economy” where recovered and recycled material is of a sufficient quality to be routinely reused in the economy. The ICE has suggested that the cost of making the required changes could be anywhere between £10-20bn by 2020.

BuilderScrap is of course fully aware of the need to change attitudes towards waste management, one method of ensuring that materials are not down-cycled is by ensuring that good quality new and used material are used for their intended purpose. For example construction waste, which equates to approximately 120 million tonnes includes approximately 14% of this is brand new material which has become surplus (WRAP). Furthermore, it is estimated that the same quantity again is reusable second hand material.

By recovering this material before recycling, significant savings can be made with reduced demands on energy and resources required in the recycling process, whilst also ensuring that the product has an economic value and not downgraded. Reclaiming and reusing materials is the most effective way to recover value from waste materials.

Defra has welcomed the report by the Institute of Civil Engineers (ICE) and will be utilising the report alongside their current review of waste policies in England. A spokesperson from Defra stated “It contains some interesting ideas and policy suggestions which we will look at in detail as part of our review”.

It will be interesting to see whether this review places greater importance on the areas of reuse and ensure that legislation and incentives ensure that the ideal waste hierarchy is achievable and economically viable.

Source: BBC News (13/01/2011) (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12172766)

The Welsh Assembly Government set out plans to create a zero-waste society.

Welsh environment minister Jane Davidson spoke about the countries new waste strategy “Towards Zero Waste”.

While the minister was eager to show she was ‘broadly supportive’ of methods that get results, she made it clear that Welsh would not go down the route of punishing or rewarding those involved in the programme.

She completely ruled out copying schemes like Recycle-Bank which looks likely to be used across London after being supported by Mayor Boris Johnson and his waste advisor Isobel Dedring

Ms Davidson said: “In England the focus is on how to make people recycle more – in Wales we recognise it’s more important to stop this waste in the first place.”

“We believe that our plans – including separate food waste collections and smaller bins – will do this.”

“Costly measures like those adopted in England, such as retaining a weekly bin collection or rewarding people for throwing more recyclable rubbish away, won’t.”

Welsh targets will aim for at least 70% of waste recycled by 2025 and cut carbon by 27%.

The Welsh minister said Wales has risen its recycling more than any other country in the UK, with an increase of 30% in the past decade beating England who has only managed a 25% increase.

Wales also were the first in the UK to introduce Landfill Allowance Scheme and have passed every target set out under it.

BuilderScrap supports the Welsh waste strategy!

Caroline Spelman the Environment Secretary has announced a complete review of how rubbish is disposed of in Britain, she promised a “zero waste economy”

She also went on to speak about how biodegradable waste, like food could no longer be allowed to just rot in landfill. This move could will most likely lead to councils introducing some sort of slop bucket for waste food to be collected separately.

Mrs Spelman also went on to say that aluminium, glass and paper can not be allowed to landfill if we are to reach our goals.

“We need a new approach to waste,” she said as she announced the review yesterday. “We cannot keep putting recyclable and biodegradable material into landfill.”

Doretta Cocks of the Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection said that many households did not want slop buckets because of the odour and the danger of attracting wildlife.

Wrap, the Government’s waste watchdog, said that in areas where separate food collections have already been introduced — roughly half the councils in England — people have reported a high level of satisfaction.

On June 9 2010 Scotland has announced they will reduce 20M tonnes of waste to zero.

The Scottish Government’s zero waste plan was released by Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead.

The document by the Scots speaks of a complete stop on all reusable waste or recycling being landfilled by 2020.

They have also set 2 new targets on all of Scotland’s waste, one being a 70% target for recycling and secondly, a maximum of only 5% sent to landfill, both have a target year of 2025.

Mr Lochhead said: “We can’t go on as business as usual because we can’t afford to and because resources are finite.

“We are taking decisive action and setting ambitious targets, this includes a new 70% target for all waste to be recycled by 2025.”

“The plan will help deliver progressive landfill bans, with the end goal of no waste with reuse or recycling potential being landfilled by 2020.”

BuilderScrap encourages moves such as this and hope the English Government looks at this complete stamp out of waste and inspires them to be so bold.

Rules that decide the legal definition of surplus building materials in Scotland have been altered. This means that plasterboard which complies with the right environmental policies is no longer considered waste.

The technical definition of waste may seem to be insignificant legal footnote; regarding the topic of plasterboard this could mean huge turnover and environmental savings.

It is well known that construction companies are extremely wasteful of gypsum plasterboard, with more ending up at landfill than actually being used. When sent to landfill, gympsum rots and then mixes with organic waste, which leads to a vile toxin being released and a rather unpleasant smelling gas called hydrogen sulphide.

On its own Scotland is responsible for 1,750,000 tonnes of the product going to landfill every year. Under the new legal definition when properly dealt with it can be reused either to replace virgin gypsum in new plasterboard or can be used as a cement or soil conditioner.

SEPA, Scotland’s environmental watchdog, now says that plasterboard that meets a certain standard, as laid out by the BSI PAS109:2008, it won’t count as waste, cutting down on costs and paperwork when it comes to reprocessing it.

Kenny Boag, SEPA’s head of waste policy, said: “SEPA supports the responsible processing of waste materials into high quality products as part of achieving a Zero waste society. “

“SEPA’s policies on the disposal and recovery of gypsum from plasterboard will reduce pollution from land-filling and will also facilitate the recycling of this valuable resource.”

BuilderScrap.com wants to give an honourable mention to the Welsh Assembly. This post is from the good guys at lets recycle.com… keep up the great work!

All the team want to show our appreciation to Merthyr Tydfil county borough council for their continuing efforts.  They clearly are aligned with our own goals in trying to reduce waste sent to landfill.

The Welsh Assembly Government has on (March 13 2009) announced an £800,000 package to help reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill across Wales- including £100,000 to help Merthyr Tydfil county borough council increase recycling.

It is important that residual waste is managed in the most sustainable way and that the waste we produce is progressively reduced over time

Jane Davidson, Welsh minister for environment

In Merthyr Tydfil, the funding will be used for a door-knocking campaign to encourage more households to recycle their waste and help Wales become a greener, more sustainable country. The council reported a 26.2% municipal waste recycling and composting rate in 2006/07.

The remainder of the £800,000 is expected to be used to support plastics recycling in Wales and develop “Zero waste places” – although full details have yet to emerge.

The move comes ahead of the launch of the revised Welsh Waste Strategy for consultation next month, which will set out a new framework for governing waste across the principality.

Jane Davidson, minister for the environment, sustainability and housing, said: “We all have a responsibility for our environment and to reduce Wales’ ecological footprint. A huge part of this is reducing the amount of rubbish we send to landfill. This is no longer sustainable environmentally or financially. I am delighted to be supporting this new scheme to help Merthyr households with their recycling.

“The more we recycle and the less we throw away into landfill the greater our impact will be as individuals in guarding our environment.

“It is important that residual waste is managed in the most sustainable way and that the waste we produce is progressively reduced over time. Then, perhaps, in the more distant future we can contemplate true ‘zero waste – or not producing any waste at all,” she added.

Mike Thomas, head of environmental services for Merthyr Tydfil county borough council, welcomed the funding, which he said would help to boost participation in recycling.
Related links

Welsh Assembly Government

He said: “Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council has already rolled out several initiatives this year, including weekly collection of food waste to 80% of our households. It’s now down to increasing participation rates and a door knocking campaign is viewed as the best method of making meaningful contact with “reluctant” householders.

The recycling campaign will support Wise About Waste, Wales’ strategy which set recycling targets for local authorities. The strategy is under review and will be re-launched for consultation with ambitious new targets to 2050 in April 2009.

source: http://www.letsrecycle.com/do/ecco.py/view_item?listid=37&listcatid=217&listitemid=31233

Let us know if your local authority has similar goals or has invested some money or time in initiatives to reduce waste. Provide free building materials from surplus building supplies or how they recycling existing materials.

BuilderScrap around the world

Just to finish off our BuilderScrap.com recycling around the world series.  Today we’re looking at the amounts highlighted countries send to Landfill. How much waste is recycled, composted and incinerated.

This chart illustrates the point most countries could be doing to recycle.  Our thoughts are that some countries really are on the ball. Some need to implement a cultural shift, and it falls to governments and pressure groups to force the issue.

Thanks for reading.

The last part of the BuilderScrap.com recycling around the world series. Today Hamadou Tidiane Sy focuses on Senegal.

Recycling is not done on an industrial scale, but it is part of daily life for many resourceful Senegalese. Everything is recycled, from plastic bags to school exercise books, food cans, bottles of mineral water and even fruit peel. The peel is said to be collected for use in cheap perfume.
Tomato tins become drinking cups in rural areas or are used by beggars in the streets, old newspapers and administrative documents are used to wrap bread, fruit or peanuts you buy in the street. Some artisans also use metal waste to produce anything from chairs to kitchen utensils and children’s toys. Plastic bags are used to make shoes. In the old days, worn tyres used to be made into sandals, but these are much less popular now.
Recently, some smart people have started collecting all the metal waste they can find to send it back to factories in Europe.
The Swiss waste disposal firm Alcyon has signed a contract with the government worth more than $9m to collect and treat rubbish in the capital Dakar. The project is being managed by AMA-Senegal, which will remove a huge tip called Mbeubeuss and recycle much of the city’s waste.

Todays BuilderScrap.com post revisits the Recycling around the world series BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen discusses Italy.

Waste disposal regulations in Italy vary from district to district. In Rome, the rules were toughened earlier this month. People who do not separate their rubbish can be fined up to 619 euros if they have a recycling bin within 500 metres of their front door.

Romans often claim that it is hard to find a bin and even harder to find one that is not full. The city council has ordered 2,500 new bins. They are colour-coded green for household waste, white for paper and blue for plastic.

The streets of the historic centre of Rome have almost no recycling bins yet. The streets are cleaned very efficiently, by vehicles that drive over waste and suck it up like enormous self-propelled vacuum cleaners.

In southern Italy local politicians claim that the waste management industry is controlled by organised crime. Last year the European Commission said it was taking action against Italy, for 28 breaches of EU laws on the environment. It said that Italy was denying its citizens the same quality of life enjoyed by people in other EU countries.

When I moved here five months ago I asked the caretaker of my building whether I should separate my family’s rubbish. He laughed and looked incredulous. “Are you joking?” he said. “This is Rome.”

We know that Athens is up in flames lets hope that the waste recycling systems they’ve in place haven’t contributed.  More from the office at BuilderScrap.com on Recycling around the world, todays country is Greece.

In the cramped offices of the Ecological Recycling Society in central Athens, Philip Kirkitsos hits us with some alarming statistics.

Every year, he says, one billion plastic drinking water bottles are thrown away in Greece, along with one billion soft drinks bottles and yet another billion plastic containers for cleaning fluids.

Almost one-fifth of the entire waste produced by this country is plastic, and yet just 1% of it is recycled. Greece, he admits, is at least 15 years behind the rest of the EU in almost all areas of recycling and is unlikely to meet EU targets for next year.

In Athens the recycling bins so common in most European cities are a rare sight. Although recently the authorities have launched new schemes, the impact so far seems to be minimal.

Recycling just is not high on the list of priorities for the average Athenian.

Most bags of household waste contain large amounts of glass, metal, paper and plastic which end up being dumped at the city’s only landfill which – not surprisingly – is now almost full.

As a result, the capital currently faces an acute waste management crisis because no alternative sites have been set up.

Ironically the city does have what is believed to be Europe’s largest recycling plant, built next to the landfill four years ago. But the plant – estimated to have cost at least 75m euros (£50m) – has stood idle.

The reason? It was badly damaged by a mountain of rubbish which collapsed on top of it.